L.A Riots of 1992 and HIP-HOP

 In today's class we talked about Gansga Rap and about how rappers who have committed crimes and have been in jail are not welcomed by society but are welcomed in the hip hop community - and are even glorified for it.

The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 changed Rap music.

The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 started when Rodney King led police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles County before eventually surrendering. King resisted arrest and was brutally beaten by police officers. Without the police knowing, a citizen with a personal video camera was filming the arrest, and the 89-second video caught the police beating King with their batons and kicking him long after he was capable of resistance. The video, released to the press, caused outrage around the country and triggered a national debate on police brutality.

Twenty years ago, when the L.A riots were ignited on April 29,1992, a single man’s life became the means for a rap revolution led by Ice Cube and other hip-hop icons. By the time of Rodney King’s beating, rap had already put its stakes into the American musical underpinning, giving birth to both intellectual discourse on race relations and social injustice, as well as shameless verbal rebuke in the form of gangsta rap.

"Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word Gangster."

The riot era was the era of Ice Cube, 2Pac, Dr. Dre, NWA, etc  During that period most of the music was done by black males in their early twenties from depressed urban ghettos, infested with gangs, drugs and brutal police.

The VH1 rock doc Uprising: Hip Hop & the LA Riots recalls the days and nights when Los Angeles burned. On the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots, Ice Cube remembers where he was when the uprising broke, and how hip hop fueled the insurgence

A prominent voice in the movement, Cube became a rapper and actor who pioneered this subgenre of west coast hip-hop with his anti-authoritative gang of poetic nihilists, N.W.A.. At the time of the riots, he was on to his own initiative, releasing solo records and focusing on a burgeoning career in the movie business.

“There was gang truce records, you know, records that really tried to grab the spirit of the riots and what it was about,” said Cube, “It wasn’t about burning buildings, it was about justice. You know, for not just Rodney King, he’s just the spark. Justice for all the Rodney Kings that’s out there that didn’t get on camera, didn’t get on film. At a certain point, people just get so fed up they get violent."